Already Dead
by Arem
Summary: A late night visitor reveals secrets of one of the team.
1. Chapter 1

They first realized something was wrong when Jarvis didn't respond.

They had been having a team bonding night. A time to "further our knowledge of each other," as Steve put it; basically, they watched Star Wars and had popcorn battles.

They had asked Jarvis to turn the lights on. When nothing happened Tony got up and flipped the switch. Still nothing.

"Jarvis?" he called. Everyone got quiet when there was no response. "Jarvis?"

Again, nothing.

"I'm afraid he won't be available for a while." A low, feminine voice cut through the darkness.

"Who are you? Identify yourself." Steve commanded in his 'Captain America' voice.

"My name is Tessa." A young woman stepped into the light of the television, "hello, Thor." She nodded to the burley blonde. The Asgardian looked terrified.

"Who have you come for?" Thor asked, stepping forward.

"Aren't you going to tell them what I am?" Tessa asked gesturing to the rest of the avengers.

Thor gulped.

"I'm a reaper." Tessa began, "Death has sent me to kill one of you. I thought I would come during one of your battles, but Death sent me now. But I don't think I can kill my intended human; my powers don't appear to be working on them."

"Who?" the question was from Steve this time.

"I've come for the broken one."

"Honey, that describes all of us to some extent." Stark retorted.

"I come for the one so broken and scarred no one even notices anymore. Yes, you all have been broken; and all but one of you has been put back together. I come for the one shattered beyond repair."

"No one can be beyond help." Steve contradicted adamantly.

"I'm afraid they can."

"How?" Steve demanded.

"If you start chipping away when they are young, and keep chipping, even the hardest rock will break."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked.

"Start them off with a terrible childhood. An angry, drunken father that you can never please. A distant careless mother who won't even acknowledge your existence. If you grow up hated by family and peers. And it didn't change. Even when he defied every odd; when he proved his worth people hate him. He gave people everything and they threw it back in his face. I see inside him even now. The loneliness, the shame, the hatred, the feeling that nothing he does will ever be enough. But by simply looking at him you would never guess. He believes himself a monster; he has invited death to himself many times."

"What does that mean?" Barton interrupted.

"He wanted to die and took measures to get there." Tessa stated solemnly.

"None of us would eve-" Steve began

"Not all are as innocent as you." Tessa's voice cut him off like a whip. "Definitely not the one I came for. The man who hides everything. Who smiles as he fights a battle he cannot win; and he knows it." she stopped and dropped her chin to her chest. " I guess I'll take my leave now." She turned to go.

"I thought you said you were here to kill one of us?" Tony asked.

"Oh, you've known all along; haven't you? You know who I came for. My powers don't work on the soul I was sent to collect."

"How's that possible?" Tony inquired.

"Don't you see? I can't kill you Tony, because inside you're already dead."

**A/N: don't know if I should continue…. Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

_"Don't you see? I can't kill you Tony; because inside you're already dead."_

The room fell completely silent. No one moved. Tessa turned and faded into the darkness. The lights flickered back on, and still no one spoke. Tony bolted and ran for the door. The rest of the Avengers were too shocked to stop him.

"What just happened?" Steve was the first to speak.

"I have never known a reaper to fail their task." Thor gulped. "I have met this Tessa before. She is sent to collect only the mightiest warriors."

"So she wasn't lying? She was sent to…collect Tony?" Bruce inquired, cleaning his glasses in a nervous gesture.

"Oh, crap." Clint breathed. He started to leave the room when Natasha snagged his arm.

"She just told us he was suicidal! And we let him leave!" He shouted, ripping his arm free from her grasp and sprinting down the corridor the billionaire had taken moments earlier. He didn't care if the rest of the team followed; he was not losing another friend.

He reached the lab, hoping his hunch was correct. He knocked harshly on the locked door.

"JARVIS, open the door." He panted.

"Sir has locked the doors; I am not permitted to open them." As the AI spoke, a grating fell from the ceiling.

The vents.

"I love you Jay." And with that the world's greatest marksman jumped up and into his second home. He crawled through the enclosed space faster than he ever had before. He reached the vent opening into the lab in record time (even faster than that one time he had been hiding from Natasha after a disastrous dodge-ball game). He pushed the cover with all of his might, tumbling down into the lab after it.

Normally, when Clint came near the lab, you could hear music from several rooms over; or feel it vibrate in the vents. This time it was silent. He dusted himself hurriedly as he stood, looking around for the missing genius.

"He is in here, right Jarvis? You didn't trick me for him?" the archer mumbled, more to himself than the AI.

He walked toward the center of the expansive room, checking all the cubby's and corners as he went. Flashes of holograms flicked on and off at various work stations. The lab seemed more like a ghost town than anything else. The same sense of foreboding lingered in the air.

And then Clint saw him.

The genius was sitting on the floor with his back against one of the worktables. He stared straight ahead, but you could tell he wasn't really seeing anything. Surprisingly there was no alcohol to be seen. The archer walked over and slid down the wall to sit next to the genius.

"I didn't want you to know." Tony was the first to break the silence. "I thought maybe you all wouldn't hate me if you didn't know."

"Tony, we don't hate you. None of us do."

"You can't know that."

"Well I don't. And I'm fairly certain Bruce doesn't. Thor loves everybody. I can't say anything concrete about Natasha, but I did catch her admiring the new Widow's Bite you designed her." Clint smiled half-heartedly.

"People always like me when I give them things." Tony snorted, rubbing tears from his eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that and you know it. Nat isn't the kind of person who can be bought." The blonde chided gently. "And Steve cares about you too. He's just better at being a Captain than a friend sometimes, I think."

"I'm getting better. Pepper and Rhodey helped me get sober. I haven't tried to….in a while. I guess it's just not enough because she was right. I still feel dead inside most days." The genius stated dully.

"What about the days that you don't? What makes them different?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do. We can help you fix this if you'll let us."

"Jarvis has a list of triggers. It's extensive."

"Depression can be that way." Clint nodded knowingly. "Do you want to tell me about it, or would you rather Jay did it for you?"

"I just…. Sometimes it's all so much. But it still seems like it's never enough. I do everything I can and it's never enough for some people. And then I take a day to feel alive again only to come back to a tower of obligations." He hesitated. "And then I think about how Jarvis is developed enough to take my place indefinitely. If I disappeared off the face of the earth Jay would carry on for me and no one would even care that I was gone. They have Iron Man. They have the tech upgrades. What else matters?"

"You matter. Alright, you may not see this but we need you. Iron Man doesn't stumble into the kitchen at lunchtime babbling in Italian about the new suits he designed to keep his teammates safe. Iron Man didn't play paintball with me when I was unable to go on missions because I hadn't passed the psych eval. Tony Stark did that. And yeah, the Avengers need Iron Man. They could continue fighting if Jarvis took over, because Iron Man is all the world needs. But I need you. Rhodey needs you. Pepper needs you. You hold together this crazy band of misfits. And don't you dare try to tell me it would be the same without you." Clint had no idea if he was doing this right. Tony was crying. He was trying to comfort the dude, not make him cry.

Clint wrapped his arms around Tony in a tentative embrace. Surprisingly, the engineer let him. Eventually the tears ran out leaving behind an exhausted genius behind. Jarvis was finally allowed to unlock the door, and the Avengers quietly gathered around them. If they all fell asleep in a pile in the lab, well, Jarvis would be the only one with pictures to prove it.

It wasn't okay. Not yet. But that didn't mean it couldn't be.

_**an: so I finally wrote a conclusion... sorry if you were waiting...**_


End file.
